1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to orthopaedic prostheses and, specifically, to articular tibial components in a knee prosthesis.
2. Description of the Related Art
Orthopaedic prostheses are commonly utilized to repair and/or replace damaged bone and tissue in the human body. For a damaged knee, a knee prosthesis may be implanted using a tibial baseplate, a tibial bearing component, and a distal femoral component. The tibial baseplate is affixed to a proximal end of the patient's tibia, which is typically resected to accept the baseplate. The femoral component is implanted on a distal end of the patient's femur, which is also typically resected to accept the femoral component. The tibial bearing component is placed between the tibial baseplate and femoral component, and may be fixed upon or slidably coupled to the tibial baseplate.
The tibial bearing component, which may also be referred to as a tibial insert or meniscal component, provides an articular surface which interacts with the adjacent femur or femoral component during extension and flexion of the knee.
Prior art tibial bearing components have included anterior relief spaces which are at least partially concave along their medial/lateral extents (i.e., as viewed from a coronal/transverse perspective), and at least partially convex as viewed from a sagittal perspective. However, these prior art anterior relief spaces have not been convex across the entire anterior/posterior span, instead having one or more flat expanses of material in the anterior relief space. Further, as a result of these flat expanses of material, the radii defined by the sagittally convex portions of the prior art anterior relief spaces are substantially less than 5 mm.
The features and geometry of the articular surface influences the interaction with the tibial bearing component and the surrounding soft tissues after implantation. Substantial design efforts have previously focused on providing knee prosthesis components which protect the natural tissues of the knee during the in vivo use of the components.